Scuba Diver, Water Lilies, and Ocean Layers Projects

Hello Friends,

I am beginning my second week of Summer break and I have been doing all those things that I put off during the school year .... things like cleaning closets, purging clothes I do not need, cleaning closets, organizing the garage, cleaning closets and cleaning closets....... yes, most of my time has been taken up with cleaning closets! I am an "out of sight, out of mind" person during the school year..... yep...... It takes me FOREVER to go through all the stuff that I STUFFED in my closets.... It is my goal this summer to make sure that this does not happen this school year...... we shall see......... My plan is to do all these household tasks in June, then work on my TPT store in July, and then gear up in August for school. In between those things, though, I have been enjoying having NO schedule! I also am looking forward to spending some family time in Michigan and soaking up the lake, sun and beach.

And speaking of the beach.... I thought I would share with you a few activities that I did with my students during our Ocean/Water theme.
 
I got this cute scuba diver project from my kindergarten partner across the hall. My kids had such a great time creating these cute divers. We discussed the differences between scuba diving and snorkeling. We discussed how our hair goes up when we are in the water.... If you look closely, you can see that they listened to me; hair is going up! (so cute).  There is a writing component included with this project, but I did not take pictures of it. Basically, this was one of those "let's have fun" type of projects that teaches without too much stress!

If you would like to do this project with your students (or kids), you can find it for free in my store. Just click the image below to take you there.....

Another fun project we did was NOT about the ocean or beach, but it IS about water. I am sure that many of you will be visiting ponds with lily pads this summer. Here are a couple pictures of the lily pads that we saw on the pond that we visited.....

 After discussing the watery look of the pond and the flowers attached to the stems my students took watercolors and painted a water background. Then they used their watercolors to paint a coffee filter flower. They put glue on the paper and attached their flower. These turned out so pretty!

The last project we did  before school was out was studying the layers of the ocean. We did many projects with this theme, but the one that the kids really enjoyed was creating a mural of the layers of the ocean. Here are a couple of examples of the seashore poster....

We studied 3 Ocean layers;  Sunlight Zone, Twilight Zone, and the Dark Zone. We had studied the layers of the Rainforest, so I equated the Ocean to the layers found there. They were, of course, fascinated with the scary creatures of the Dark Zone. Our study encouraged research of ocean animals and caused my students to learn about animals that were different from the usual dolphin, crabs, and sharks! If you would like to do this project with your students, I have the resource in my store. Just click the image below to take you there!

Here is hoping that most of you are either finished with school or the last day will be here soon!

Until next time!